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The movie is littered with NBA references. 'There is some supernatural power inside KG, and the idea it would come from a gem is perfect and believable,' Grousbeck told ESPN. He improvised a bit, but he stuck mostly to the script.'Īt a private screening this week for the Celtics, Wyc Grousbeck, the Celtics governor, told the Safdies that Garnett - superstitious and ritualistic - was the right choice. 'He took his lines very seriously,' Josh Safdie told ESPN. I took those same things coming in here.' It's Tim Duncan tonight' - watching film. It took me back to, 'OK, it's Rasheed Wallace tonight. 'Acting is preparation, just like anything else,' Garnett told the group in New York. He is (in this amateur critic's opinion) quite good - charismatic, funny, intimidating when the part calls for it. He is perhaps the second-most important presence, behind only Sandler.

Garnett plays himself, and the role is huge. 'But I realized after meeting him that I didn't know his real voice. 'I would always watch KG postgame because he was so entertaining,' Josh Safdie told ESPN. He was different in person than he was on television and in media interviews. Garnett's representatives told them they would have an hour. They met with a few, including Chris Bosh, Josh Safdie said. The studio gave them a list of retired players. They moved on to Joel Embiid, but working around the schedule of an active player proved impossible. The Safdies never met or spoke to Bryant.) He was never attached in any formal way, and never saw a script.

(Bryant told ESPN he had never heard this story before. I definitely didn't want to make a Celtic movie, either.' 'I was like, 'F-! I just spent all this time rewriting!'' Josh Safdie said. Then they learned Bryant wished to direct films, not act in them. They spent two weeks reorienting the script around Bryant's 61-point game at Madison Square Garden in February 2009. Their agents pressured them to aim higher - perhaps as high as Kobe Bryant. The Safdies thought he was a natural fit. He also played five seasons for the Knicks. He later played in Israel and discussed plans to convert to Judaism, and this year he was granted Israeli citizenship. Stoudemire has traveled to Israel many times to trace his Jewish roots and develop his faith, first in 2010. The Safdies are Jewish, and the intersection of basketball and New York City Jewish culture runs through the movie.

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The film includes snippets of real footage from that series. The league did not license the footage, sources say the Safdies will claim fair use if necessary. With that knowledge, Sandler's character begins betting on the series.

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Garnett visits Sandler's shop in New York during the Celtics' playoff series against the Philadelphia 76ers in 2012 and becomes fascinated with the opal, believing it has mystical powers that help him play better. Sandler's character, Howard Ratner, acquires a black opal mined from Ethiopia. When the Safdies began writing 'Uncut Gems' a decade ago, they did so with Amar'e Stoudemire in mind for the role of the NBA star who improbably comes into the orbit of the stressed-out, stretched-thin, gambling-addicted Diamond District jeweler played by Sandler. The NBA's lottery system has corrupted Sandler's New York fandom, he told the group. 'But I rooted against Larry Bird very hard. 'I could have become a Celtic fan,' Sandler told a small group of reporters in New York last week. Sandler had a chance to leave the Knicks behind and jump onto the Boston bandwagon years before Larry Bird, Robert Parish, and Kevin McHale formed the Big Three. Sandler was born in Brooklyn, but his family moved to Manchester, New Hampshire - prime Celtics country - when he was 5. 'I hated Boston,' Josh Safdie told ESPN this week. Josh and Benny Safdie, the writer-director brothers, are diehard fans of the New York Knicks - which naturally means they hate the Celtics. How Kevin Garnett teamed up with Adam Sandler in 'Uncut Gems'Īlmost nobody behind 'Uncut Gems,' the Adam Sandler/Kevin Garnett drama steeped in NBA lore that opens Friday in New York and Los Angeles (and nationwide on Christmas), wanted the movie to have anything to do with Garnett and the Boston Celtics - unless it somehow involved the Celtics' humiliation.

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